


what died didn't stay dead (and if i didn't know better)

by danverspotsticker



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Major Character Undeath, Post-Canon, might be slight references to them though, probably canon compliant but also who knows, ruining it a little first though, the comics are not treated as canon here because theyre not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29386242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danverspotsticker/pseuds/danverspotsticker
Summary: the woman comes closer, and just as kennedy is prepared to grow defensive because familiar or not, this woman is unknown, a warmth hits her.warmth that had kennedy still been a potential, she wouldn’t know is magic. warmth that had kennedy never loved willow, if she’d never been taught to recognize the difference between magic used for dark and magic used for light, she might not recognize for what it is. and with that connection - of magic, and of willow - kennedy’s casual recognition nearly bowls her over.“tara?”
Relationships: Tara Maclay/Willow Rosenberg
Comments: 15
Kudos: 26





	1. i still feel you around

**Author's Note:**

> everyone say thank you to taylor swift's marjorie for sending me spiraling into finally writing my tara comes back fic

Willow pretends it isn’t happening for as long as she can, but as long as she can doesn’t actually last that long. She’s a pretty powerful witch and she’s had enough dreams about Tara to know when they’re normal dreams and when there’s something wrong. So, when she starts waking up in a haze every morning, with blue eyes staring into hers until she wills herself to blink them away, she knows something is wrong. 

When she runs to the grocery store to grab food for Buffy after a particularly aggressive demon leaves her bruised and uncomfortable on the couch in their living room, she ignores the face she swears she keeps seeing across the aisle. When she goes to pay and feels a chin resting on her shoulder that isn’t there, she knows something is wrong.

When she stops being able to look into a mirror without seeing herself - nineteen - and the woman she thought would be by her side forever, she knows something is wrong.

But telling someone would mean the eyes go away, so she doesn’t. She just avoids Xander because he knows there’s something wrong and she knows she supposed to go to him about their dead girlfriend things, especially now that Spike was brought back for whatever dumb reason the Power’s That Be had and she can’t really talk to Buffy about it but… she has never been good at letting go of pieces of Tara. Not when the only ones that exist now that Sunnydale is a crater are the ones that exist in her and Dawn and the scoobies. 

So, she ignores the haziness of the dreams and the ghost limbs that aren’t hers and the face she sees in the mirror that isn’t quite hers anymore and the way she can feel herself getting tired and weaker. Because, well, there are no terrible losses to be had if the worst comes. At least she gets to see Tara now. 

That’s… definitely not a good sign. But she’ll deal with it, she swears. She just wants a little more time to remember what Tara looks like, so she never has another panic attack because she can’t remember what shade of blue her eyes were.

It’s probably karma that she has so much anxiety around forgetting Tara.

The dreams aren’t bad. They’re usually centered around that day. When she could still focus on Tara in her bed. In her room. In her sweater. In her arms. 

When she could focus on anything except the taste of her blood in her mouth and anything except the fear that shot through her veins, kinda like a bullet would.

They’re usually warm like Tara was, and she hears her voice again and the weight of her body next to hers and it feels so, so, real. And for the breathless and hazy moments when she wakes up, it remains that way. Then eventually the fog lifts, and she’s alone in a room in an old castle that she agreed to buy because the idea made Xander look stupid-happy like he never really does anymore.

But the castle runs cold, like Tara actually is. 

* * *

Kennedy thinks the castle was and still is a stupid idea. She gets that it’s large and is one of few both affordable and suitable types of buildings they could’ve gotten for the New Council, but it’s still stupid. For many reasons, not exclusive to the constant cold temperature, over-presence of mice, and Andrew’s amplified medieval-speak. It’s also creepy, and situated in a way that means every few weeks the cycle of slayers-on-duty shifts so that Kennedy has to spend the night standing guard just in case any brave demons decide to head to slayer central for a good time.

The posting system has proven pretty useless, the closest they’ve gotten to an incident is when a bat flew too close to Vi’s head and she decided she would set off the alarm system Willow rigged. But Kennedy is trying this new thing where she gives people the benefit of the doubt even when she doesn’t get it, something Willow pointed out as a glaring issue of hers in the final of their “we both knew this wouldn’t last but it turns out I actually do care about you so friends maybe?” conversation. So, Kennedy is outside and it’s a little rainy and cold and the dark paired with a castle and her overtired state all make for a less than desired effect of creepiness. 

The woman drenched from head-to-toe approaching up the path towards the castle definitely doesn’t help. 

Now, Kennedy is pretty good with faces. She’s one of the few people in the Council who can boast a 100% accuracy rating on all of the slayers' names. It’s something she takes pride in. So, when she sees the woman and can’t remember her name, can’t place which group of slayers she belongs in, Kennedy grows frustrated. But the woman comes closer, and just as Kennedy is prepared to grow defensive, because familiar or not, this woman is unknown, a warmth hits her. 

Warmth that had Kennedy still been a potential, she wouldn’t know is magic. Warmth that had Kennedy never dated Willow, if she’d never been taught to recognize the difference between magic used for dark and magic used for light, she might not recognize for what it is. And with that connection - of magic, and of Willow - Kennedy’s casual recognition nearly bowls her over. “Tara?”

She knows she’s right the minute she asks. But the blonde’s exhausted eyes look up, and her head tilts - she doesn’t recognize Kennedy, how could she? Kennedy holds out a cautionary hand and Tara slows to a stop. Kennedy clears her throat, speaking loudly so Tara can hear over the rain and distance but softly because, well, she has no idea what’s going on and if this is a zombie or vampire or apparition or some other insane thing that has become a normalcy in her life, she doesn’t want to scare it off, “Do you… do you know where you are?”

It’s an odd thing, hearing a voice she’s never heard from a woman she’s heard so much about. Kennedy’s even heard about words Tara used - _uses?_ Kennedy’s life gets weirder everyday - and phrases she said that were important to Willow. It was usually a bad day when she unknowingly repeated them, sometimes just an awkward conversation where Kennedy would learn to rewire her colloquialisms to avoid pet names that were to be left alone in Willow’s memory of Tara. But Tara speaks, and there’s a roughness to her voice that she wasn’t expecting, though she doesn’t know if that’s a symptom of the situation or just bias from the softness that intones every story she’s ever heard about her. “Kind of? I c-couldn’t tell you where on a map. But this is th-the Council, right? Uh, Buffy’s in there?”

Kennedy doesn’t know how to go about this. Because they have protocol for this kind of situation, any suspicious being and you report it to whoever the higher up magic user for the night is and then there’s a whole thing with checking for glamours and truth spells and intentions and aura readings. But tonight that higher up is Willow, and Kennedy is the slayer on guard and the suspicious being might be the woman Willow loves who everyone, until now at least, was pretty certain was dead. Kennedy furrows her brow in her concerned state as she says, “She is…”

Tara’s eyes dawn with comprehension. “I’m not a threat. I know you’re a... a slayer?”

At the question in Kennedy’s eyes, Tara adds, “Your aura, it makes that kind of clear.” She pauses, considering. Kennedy thinks she knows what the consideration might be. Lines appear in Tara’s forehead as she asks, “You know Willow?”

Yeah, Kennedy thought that one might be coming. “I do.” She looks down in contemplation. “Tara, do you… do you know what’s happened?”

And Tara smiles, one that looks genuine but with an edge. “Th-the part where I died or the part where it’s been almost five years?”

Kennedy snorts. “Okay. I’ll take that as a yes.”

Tara nods. Kennedy offers her a smile and beckons her closer. “So… a bit of a situation. When someone approaches our fort here, I’m supposed to report it to the higher up. Issue is: that higher up tonight is Willow and that would probably be… _unhelpful,_ to say the least.”

Tara smiles tightly. “Yeah… I d-don’t,” She sighs deeply. “I don’t think that would be helpful for either of us.”

Kennedy nods her agreement. “Then we'll go find Xander, he probably won’t handle it better, but it will be less emotional stakes.”

Tara snorts and goes to follow Kennedy but Kennedy stops. “Um, this isn’t personal but on the off chance that you’re in fact not actually my ex’s dead girlfriend come back to life, walk in front of me?”

Tara furrows her eyebrows at the address of Willow. “Ex?”

* * *

Xander looks older. Not in big ways - aside from the eyepatch. He’s grown a bit of a beard and his eye rests heavier in his face as if he’s perpetually tired and his hair is longer than Tara has ever seen it. Currently, the one visible eye is staring widely at her. It leaves her gaze to meet Kennedy’s, “So, not going to Willow with this immediately is definitely the right choice. But I also have no idea what’s going on _ever_ , so I’m not sure I was the right one either.”

And he’s familiar, as much of a comforting dork as ever, and Tara has had so much unfamiliarity that just standing in the same room as him makes her feel safer than she has in a while. He keeps speaking, “I’m pretty sure the only person who would know about this _is_ Willow, which is, uh, not ideal.”

“What about Giles?” Kennedy offers.

Xander hums. “He’s still grouchy about his retirement-thing. We’re only supposed to go to him for emergencies.”

Tara silently raises her eyebrows and unknowingly Kennedy does the same. “I’m sorry, dead girl walking doesn’t count as an emergency?”

“No offence.” She adds.

Tara shakes her head. “None taken. Pretty s-sure my being alive again counts as an emergency.”

Xander claps his hands and gestures them towards Kennedy as he steps past the two of them to open the door. “Very true - let’s go ruin Giles’ night.”

He stops as he walks and turns back to Tara. “Not that you’re night ruining, just, you’re probably not _you_.”

Tara cringes at her lack of rebuttal but Xander doesn’t seem to mind, he just smiles tightly. “I’m sorry. I hope you’re actually, y’know, _you,_ but you’re not the first Tara-sighting we’ve had and I’m not risking Willow and Dawn if you’re not you.”

Tara smiles back. “N-no. I get it, I do.”

Xander laughs softly. “I really do hope you’re you.”

He looks over to where Kennedy stands beside her. “I might be the only one.”

Kennedy scoffs. “Despite _your_ inability to treat your exes like human beings, Willow is my friend, I want her to be happy.”

Xander looks reprimanded and Tara looks down so he doesn’t see her let out a silent laugh. Kennedy takes the car keys from Xander’s hand. “You can’t drive, so let’s go.”

* * *

Kennedy pulls up to a house that Tara can’t really describe beyond the fact that she’s certain it belongs to Giles. The olive green of the trimming and the door feels like him, and when Xander gets out and invites her to follow him towards the door her feeling is confirmed. Kennedy follows after both of them and Xander rings the doorbell. It takes a few moments, Tara doesn’t know what time it is, just that it’s late. But eventually Giles pulls the door open and he looks the same as always and the icing on the cake is the near immediacy with which he takes off his glasses to clean them as he says, “Good lord…”

Xander laughs, “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”

Giles shakes his head. “Please just come in.”

He nods to Tara, not meeting her eyes. “You as well, in case you need the invitation.”

Tara just follows Xander, well aware of the stare that Kennedy still has fixed on her. Trying to ignore it, she lets her eyes wander around the room as Giles leaves them to get some things from his office. Looking past familiar objects, a few books she remembers from his apartment in Sunnydale, she settles on a photo. In it are five people, but she focuses on the two in the middle. Dawn looks older, as people tend to when they age, standing next to Buffy in the photo, she looks taller. She tries to ignore the pang in her chest but it’s only amplified as she focuses on the next face. Willow looks the same and she looks like a different person and Tara just feels loss, like she always does when she thinks of Willow. 

Xander must see her eyes focused on the picture because he says, “That was Dawn’s graduation. I don’t think Buffy stopped crying for most of the day.”

Tara smiles and Xander smiles easily back to her but then his face shifts, like he remembers he’s supposed to be wary of her. Tara doesn’t blame him, as uncertain as death is in the magic world they live in, it’s still supposed to be permanent.

Giles comes back carrying several books and a small box of magic supplies that he places on the coffee table in the middle of the room. “To be quite honest, I’m not truly certain where to start.”

“Check if it’s a glamour?” Kennedy offers.

Giles hums.

“I could tell you a couple spells that might help.” Tara offers, “I-I mean, I know you don’t exactly trust me at the moment, but I can point you to some spells and you can research them to make sure they’ll help.”

Giles considers it. “I do think that might be helpful.”

Tara’s face breaks into a smile. “Good, okay. C-can I borrow that?” She points to the pen in his hand.

He offers it to her and she writes down a couple spells as she feels Giles’ eyes on her. When she stands up straight again he’s still looking. At her questioning glance he asks, “I know we haven’t… we haven’t determined that you’re actually our Tara but… I've gotten to the point in life where any hope, even if it turns out to be misplaced, is worth the risk. So, I’m inclined to believe that you’re who you appear to be.”

Tara smiles. “Thanks, Mr. Giles.”

Giles blows air out of his nose. “And if you turn out to be lying, your performance is worth my belief.”

Tara nods and looks down. Giles speaks again, “I think a hug would be appropriate?”

Tara laughs and steps towards him, burying her face in his comforting chest as tears start to stream down her face. “Thank you.”

She can’t see them, but Giles’ misty eyes crinkle as he squeezes her in his arms. He almost expects there to be some jealousy or anger that it’s Tara and not Jenny, the same way it bubbled up when they heard the news about Spike. But he just feels relief because of all the people they’ve lost, Tara was _so_ young and Willow hasn’t been anywhere near the same since. So he lets the hope, however reckless it might be, swell in his chest.

And so over the next few hours, Giles researches the spells Maybe-Tara gives him while Tara lets him perform the ones he deems helpful on her as Kennedy and Xander watch, occasionally pitching in ideas or comments. It ends on Giles’ realization that if it isn’t Tara, the glamour or spell is so strong that the only way to determine if it’s truly her is to read her aura. The issue there is, “Willow is the only person who doesn’t live a plane ride away that can read auras.”

It’s not the best situation, but Giles has decided that it’s “nearly absolutely definitely Tara,” Not in his own words, but in Xander’s. So, Kennedy gets sent to drive back to the castle since it’s pretty much morning anyway. It’s not ideal since that also means she’s the one that has to convince Willow to go visit Giles with very little context and Willow’s willingness to follow anyone blindly is minimal at best.

* * *

As expected, Willow is unimpressed by Kennedy’s unwillingness to expand on what is so important that she needs to go to Giles’ house right away at still-dark o’clock in the morning, to say the least. She makes sure Kennedy knows as much, “Kenn, just because you hate having to take night guard doesn’t mean you need to make a fake crisis.”

Kennedy grips the steering wheel as she sighs. “It’s not a fake crisis.”

Willow looks at her. “So it’s an emergency, but not so urgent that you should be telling me what’s up on the way over to Giles’ house… seems pretty fake crisis to me.” 

Kennedy nods. “I recognize that but I have the Giles seal of I’m-Not-Allowed-To-Tell you, so I need you to just trust me. Please, Will.”

Willow sighs. “Okay. But if it’s just that Giles got like… a cat and doesn’t know how to look after it, I’ll make sure you’re on the night guard for the next month.”

Kennedy laughs, a little relieved at the levity of the conversation now. “Sounds good, Willow.”

As they get closer, Kennedy feels Willow tense in the seat next to her. Acclimating when Kennedy pulls into the driveway and Willow speaks, voice tense, “Kennedy. What’s happening?”

It’s a question, but it’s one that tells Kennedy that Willow already has an inkling of what’s going on. She decides to explain, the fear in Willow’s eyes too palpable to ignore. Arming herself with her Slayer-Reporting-To-Her-Higher-Up voice, she says. “Last night - a little after midnight - while I was on night guard a woman approached the castle looking for Buffy.”

Willow nods and Kennedy continues, “I could sense she had magic so I made the decision to contact Xander for help.”

Willow lets out a deep breath through her nose. “You went to Xander… The Council weapons master, instead of me, the witch on duty that you, _by regulation_ , are _supposed_ to go to?”

Kennedy sighs, _“Willow…”_

Willow’s voice is stern, “Who is she, Kennedy?”

Kennedy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as she finally turns off the car. “Willow, I -”

_“Who is she?”_

Kennedy concedes. “After many, _many_ spells and anti-spells, Giles is almost certain that, barring you reading her aura and disagreeing, it’s Tara.”

Willow laughs. And laughs, and laughs while Kennedy waits. She’s been in spots similar to this before, the laugh had been less desperate but equally grief ridden when Willow had gotten back from her mystical walkabout that she refused to talk about to the news that both Cordelia and Fred were dead. But Willow’s laughing stops, and in a damp voice she clarifies, “So, I’m about to go in there and read the aura of a woman who looks exactly like Tara and it’ll either be the next evil thing we need to fight or the woman who I’ve spent the past five years pretty intensely grieving, to put it lightly, is no longer dead.”

Kennedy nods. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Willow hums. “Fantastic. Great. This is… good, this is…”

Kennedy interrupts her. “Willow. Take your time.”

Willow looks at her frantically. “Take my time? No offense but this kinda seems like exactly the thing I shouldn’t be taking my time on since she’s either evil or _Tara.”_

Kennedy agrees, “Yeah, actually that’s probably true. I was aiming for comfort.”

Willow snorts. “Thanks.”

Kennedy slouches in her seat. “Whenever you’re ready…”

Willow just nods, staring ahead for a moment. “Should probably get it over with, right?”

Kennedy just stays silent. Willow nods again, surer. “Okay… I think I’m good. I mean, not _good,_ but I don’t want to put it off.”

Kennedy hums. “And you want to see her.”

Willow sighs. “And I want to see her.”

The short walk from the driveway to the door feels like a lifetime as Willow tries to think of any possible reaction she might have and how to try and still look sane if any of them happen. They reach the door and Willow raises her hand to ring the doorbell but she can’t move her hand close enough. Kennedy rings it for her and Willow lets out a small, “Thank you.”

Kennedy just nods as the door opens. Giles starts to smile before he sees the look on Willow’s face, turning to Kennedy he accuses, “You told her.”

Kennedy responds. “Yeah, I did. Though I don’t know which Willow you had in mind who wouldn’t demand I tell her exactly what’s going on.”

Giles smiles tightly. “Yes, well… Anyway, come in.”

They do, and Willow walks the familiar path to the living room, where she can feel the magic that might be Tara’s. She walks in and she recognizes that Xander’s there, but she’s pretty focused on the woman in front of her, smiling shyly and crookedly. Willow doesn’t let herself focus on her face, instead she focuses on the aura and she tenses, but then she sees everything she knows. It’s Tara and Willow doesn’t know how to make that clear beyond a soft, “Hi.” That she offers her.

Tara smiles wider. “It’s me.”

Willow nods. “It’s you.”


	2. i'm right where you left me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a hot minute but hopefully the length makes up for that ! hope u enjoy :)

She doesn’t want to be the kind of person that sees the woman she loved - loves - and walks out. But she is. And she does. She hears her name, her brain too foggy to address every voice she hears beyond the one she thought she would never hear again, and she leaves.

She gets in her car that Xander borrowed this morning and uses magic instead of the keys she didn’t have time to get from Kennedy to start the ignition. She tries not to think about the last time she did the spell that falls from her lips, but she can nearly feel Dawn’s fear-ridden frame in the seat next to her. She ignores it, focusing on the foggy road ahead of her. She counts trees until they look like trees again, thinking just about every thought possible except ones about the woman in that room who probably hated her already but who definitely hates her now that she ran out.

She knows this is the lesser of coping mechanisms for her to use. She should definitely probably call her therapist or her friends or she should’ve stayed there and communicated but the situation is unprecedented, it’s not  _ her _ fault she doesn’t know how to deal with her girlfriend who died so is technically her ex, but they didn’t break-up, but they also didn’t actually have a conversation about getting back together before the aforementioned death so maybe they’re nothing to each other except obviously they’re still something, they’ll always be  _ something _ .

Willow stops driving, the soft crunch of smooth rocks under the tires slowing to silence as she looks out at the beach she’s now parked in front of. The sun shines through the low clouds and the rocks are still wet from the tide and when she breathes in it feels like calm, a little bit. Althenea and Giles talk about the earth and roots a lot when she goes to them for help, but the ocean and its vastness have always made her feel safe in her comparative insignificance. 

Like space, she feels like a part of it without being central. Among the terrifying vastness without being that which makes it so terrifying. She can’t say the same about Earth these days. Not with the way the occasional demon flinches away just from the scent of her power or how Buffy boasts to every new coming slayer that she’s the one who wields power that gave it to them.

She rests on the rocks in front of the car, ignoring the chill that comes with the dampening of her denim jeans on the wet rocks in the early morning fall air. The sun lessens the bite but still she finds herself missing Sunnydale as she often does. The waves slowly move away as time passes, she’s sure she could figure out how much by the distance that grows between her and the ocean. 

Distance is a funny thing. She thinks about the 23-and-a-half-minute drive from Giles’ small house to the beach she stands on. She lets herself wonder for a moment, going back. But she’s made her choice already. Anything she wants to repair, anything she tries to repair, gets the added plus of “I ran out on you when I realized you were back.” 

As if “I brutally tortured and murdered people because I couldn’t fathom a world without you” wasn’t enough to work through.

There’s a part of Willow - tiny and drowned out by the screaming alarm bells and hopeful cheers - that doesn’t want to work through it at all. That wants to say welcome back and never anything more. Never wants to admit to Tara that she’s changed, maybe into someone Tara will never want - someone Tara could never forgive. 

But the alarm bells are louder. Screaming for her to go back to the house and apologize now. The cheers echo but their demand is softer, romantic in a way that Willow rationally knows is unattainable. The part of her that's silent after months of her teaching it to be - is the one that knows this tune. Has felt it bubbling, in grocery stores and across pillowcases and in mirrors. A part of her isn’t surprised at all. But that part is silent, its curiosity dormant until every other wired piece of her is soothed. 

But she can’t calm down, not beyond breathing that doesn’t technically count as hyperventilating but is definitely not how normal people breathe. She closes her eyes and works her way through her path from the beach to the castle, hoping the familiar will bring comfort when nothing else seems to. She gets to the end of the dirt road before a familiar voice breaks her recollection. “Shit, Red, you really are in bad shape.”

Opening her eyes and turning towards Faith who is currently balancing precariously on some larger rocks, apparently attempting to avoid the sand. At Willow’s raised eyebrows at the avoidance, Faith says, “Do you know how hard it is to get sand out of combat boots?”

Willow shakes her head and Faith finishes her path until she settles on the rocks next to her. “So, your dead girlfriend is no longer dead.”

Willow snorts at the abundance of tact and hums.

Faith nods. “It’s nice that you’re okay. Xander had himself convinced you’d gotten yourself into an accident. Kennedy had money on you fleeing the country.”

Willow shakes her head. “I’m not - fleeing the country?”

Faith smirks. “You’re kind of attached to your phone, you not answering texts is a council-wide state of emergency.”

Willow twists as she quickly reaches for her back pocket only to pull out a phone with a new dent in it with shattered glass to match. Apparently earlier she settled on the ground harder than she noticed. She cringes at the realization that she’ll have to replace it and as she feels everything start to shift under the added weight of her stupid phone, something breaks.

Faith catches it before it happens, they’ve been down this road a few times. Admittedly not this exact road. But there’s been many a realization of how terrible their pasts are, how messed up their choices were and subsequent self-hatred. Faith reaches out a rare hand and as her uneven breaths turn to tears, Willow takes it and squeezes. 

Keeping it light, Faith threatens, “If you tell anyone about the hand holding, you’ll regret keeping me out of jail.”

Through her tears Willow rolls her eyes. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re gay.”

Faith snorts. “Think the ship has sailed on that one, Will. I’m more concerned with people thinking I like you.”

Willow smiles. “Thank you.”

Faith knows the subject has changed. “Figured you’d be here; you’ve got your whole ocean-space thing.”

Willow smiles bigger, squeezing Faith’s hand again. “You do listen.”

Faith snorts. “With the rate you talk, if I didn’t listen, I would be dead from boredom.”

Willow’s smile fades as she turns back towards the lapping waves, focusing on the way they crest white. 

Faith follows her eyes, waiting for her voice to come. After some time, it does. “I didn’t… I needed to not be important for a little bit.”

Faith just hums, listening. Willow continues, “I mean… the woman I - Tara, is back. She’s alive. And she seems pretty okay, as death goes. And when the Powers in this universe allow resurrection, it’s never without price or reason.”

Faith nods. Willow shrugs. “I mean, it’s not just about me, obviously. But we don’t exactly have a lack of dead people among our ranks. If it wasn’t at least partially about me then Tara probably wouldn’t be alive, and I wouldn’t be having those stupid…”

She cuts herself off, but Faith catches her. “You wouldn’t be having what?”

Willow furrows her eyebrows. Focusing on what she thinks might be a boat so far on the horizon that she’s not entirely convinced it’s not just the other side of the ocean. She exhales. “I’ve been having dreams and seeing what I thought were hallucinations but apparently might’ve either been premonitions or ghosts. But the premonitions are really a you-and-Buffy side of the fence thing so I’m leaning more on the ghosty side of things.”

Faith tilts her head. “And you didn’t tell anyone this because…”

Willow leans back to rest on her hands, burying them in the sand between the rocks. “Lotsa reasons… a major one being I didn’t want anyone else to question my sanity.”

Faith hums. “And you missed her?”

Willow shakes her head. “Of course, I miss,  _ missed _ , her. But that’s not… it felt like I was forgetting pieces of her and whenever those events happened, she was clear again.”

Faith offers a tight-lipped smile. “You kind of have a surplus of friends with dead girlfriends, I think they would’ve gotten it.”

Willow nods, wiping away the tears that have stopped pouring. “Yeah. I don’t know, I just felt…”

“Scared?”

And Willow lets out a laugh, shredded by the shakiness in her voice. “Yeah. Yeah.”

Faith smiles. “Dead girlfriend haunting you is something worth some fear, Red.”

Willow agrees but guilt as palpable as the floor of The Bronze once was as she listened to her best friend sing creeps up her spine, consuming every thought she has like she doesn’t deserve to have them.

Faith watches Willow’s face trace a familiar path into herself, denying entry to anymore conversation then the one they’ve already had. Accepting the boundary, Faith offers, “You’ll have to head back eventually.”

Willow nods, raking her fingers lightly through the still-damp sand. “Yeah, eventually.”

Willow has learned not to ask questions about or point out the lies that Faith comes up with to validate her presence in the lives of the people she cares about. She’s mostly just glad that she’s someone that Faith has decided is worth lying for. 

That said, Willow does find it funny that Faith insisted she was already out for a morning jog and not actually worried about her when in their many years of knowing each other, Willow doesn’t think she’s ever seen Faith wake up before noon - barring apocalypse - and Faith was boasting one of her favourite pairs of combat boots. Not exactly an equation for a morning jog.

But that particular lie means that as Willow retraces the path of her earlier escape, Faith isn’t in the passenger seat putting pressure on her to act like a normal person. Somehow her keys had gotten from Kennedy to Faith and back to her, so she gets to escape the additional guilt of her past in her knowledge of how to get a car to drive itself.

But it also means that when she pulls up along the ditch in front of Giles’ house, no one can stop her from driving away after spending nearly an hour trying to convince herself just to unlock the doors. 

And it means that when Willow’s eyes stay focused on the road ahead of her, there is no one looking at Tara staring out the front window, deep concern etched into her features.

Well, Giles does from where he stands just inside the doorway of his kitchen, uncertain how to parse the distance between himself and a woman who, even before her leave from this plane of existence, he was not truly close to. He decides on the only common ground he’s certain of. “She’ll be okay.”

Tara’s eyes snap away from the window to meet his. She smiles. “I know… she always is. I just don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

Giles makes a noise that Tara thinks is the famous clucking noise Willow occasionally mentioned, Tara thinks it lies between a laugh and a scoff. Either way, he follows it up with. “Tara, I highly doubt that any of what Willow is feeling amounts to your being an inconvenience. If anything, I imagine Willow wants nothing more than to speak to you.”

Tara’s smile is disbelieving. “I think if that was the truth then she would be here.”

Giles hums. “Perhaps.” He removes his glasses to clean them on the end fabric of his shirt. “Willow has the right to her own story, and more importantly you have the right to hear it from her. But in your absence, Willow adjusted. Her, uh, coping, as it may be might be unusual compared to what you remember.”

Tara nods, unable to hide the curiosity that crosses her face. Answering the question Tara didn’t voice, Giles says, “There won’t be any dark magic use or forgetting spells.”

Tara offers a tight smile. “Good to know.”

Giles shoves his hands in his pockets and leans against the frame of the door. For a moment he considers what he knows of Willow. “It is, uh, unlikely that she’ll return today, if I’m being honest. But since your presence is a Council based concern, there’s a meeting tomorrow Willow will have to attend.”

Tara tilts her head. Giles clarifies, “This is certainly not me encouraging you to go to her office and wait for her to return from the meeting so that the both of you don’t spend irrational amounts of time avoiding each other.”

Tara snorts. “Thanks, but I don’t…” She trails off.

Giles smiles. “I didn’t truly think you would. But if you’re looking to run into her that’s where she’ll be.”

A line crinkles between her eyebrows. “I thought you’d given up on the watcher’s council.”

Giles nods quickly. “Indeed. The Council is a new, only slightly affiliated, coalition of sorts. I wasn’t a huge fan of the idea initially - it sounded too much like the old guard for lack of a better word.”

Tara looks on, listening. Giles shakes his head amused, lost in a memory. “Between Buffy, Faith, and Willow, I was convinced pretty quickly it would be different, and it has remained so.”

Tara offers a questioning glance and Giles catches it. “Hmm?”

Tara smiles slightly. “Buffy, Willow and Faith seem like an unusual combination.”

Giles chuckles. “Certainly. Sometime between Sunnydale’s collapse and about a year after the new Council was in full swing, Willow and Buffy had both forgiven and befriended Faith. As odd as it seemed at the time, there’s a certain sense it makes.”

Tara hums, recalling Faith’s jagged aura that had ultimately not ended up being so different from Buffy’s when they finally met. Not so different from Willow’s either, but that was a quieter thought.

Giles nods once. “You are welcome to stay here, or I could take you over to the Council. Whichever you would prefer, I can accommodate.”

“I think I want to go to the Council, if that’s alright?”

Silently, Giles gets his keys. “Let’s go.”

Willow  _ wants _ to see Tara, wants to apologize, or profess undying love or just be in the same room as her. But there’s a nagging in the back of her brain, the part she thinks might be the rational one, telling her to wait. The nagging kept her from getting out of her car and now it’s reduced her to laying on her couch in the hopes she falls asleep and doesn’t have to deal with issues that feel out of her control anymore.

Losing Tara was life shattering. Everything she knew about love, happiness,  _ life itself  _ had crumbled around her in pieces with the realization that Tara was gone. But she survived, and slowly the cracks stopped hurting so much. They were still there, coming out when there was nothing to think about except loss, but… they weren’t central. The ache wasn’t essential. It grew almost normal. The pain of knowing Tara was gone its own  _ safety _ . 

For Tara certainly, but mostly for herself. She can’t lose someone like Tara again if Tara is dead. She can’t hurt Tara again if Tara isn’t there to hurt. She can’t base her worth in love that Tara isn’t there to give her.

But Tara  _ is _ \- there, that is. And the cracks that were familiar and safe, despite their hurt, don’t need to be there anymore. But they are and they aren’t safe or familiar or dull anymore. Whatever glue and drywall and other things Xander would probably use as a metaphor that she used to keep the cracks from causing more damage melted away the minute she saw Tara’s face, smiling at her.

And maybe, just maybe, that would be okay. That could mean healing differently. Resetting a bone so that it heals the right way this time. But she doesn’t want to break everything that came from losing Tara. Not when there are some things, important things, that are so inherently tied to the lack of Tara’s presence that she thinks they might come spiralling apart if she so much as says hi to her again.

She doesn’t want to be the kind of person that bases her worth on other people so intrinsically, but she knows she is. Being the kind of person she wants to be was hard enough between being the head magic user at the council and still living with Buffy. She’s scared that Tara might be the straw that breaks the back of her progress, that sends her tumbling into regression that hurts everyone she loves, especially Tara herself.

Maybe that’s selfish in itself. Obviously, Tara’s resurrection isn’t about her, but there are some noticeably big risks in forgiving herself even enough to just apologize to Tara at all. 

She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t even know what  _ not _ to do beyond what she’s doing right now. But not doing what she’s doing means making a choice that will probably only make things worse since that seems to be her sole function at the moment. 

In the silence of the room, the buzzing of her now-fixed phone is prominent. Checking it, the familiar number leaves her palms sweaty, offering her answers she doesn’t want to have to know yet. Turning it off, she hopes her silence doesn’t prove to be a perceived emergency. 

But she stays in the dark of her and Buffy’s living room, waiting for the moment Buffy gets back with a disappointed look and hopefully a speech that sways her to get up. 

Buffy never comes. Instead, when the door finally swings open, bright light streaming in and leaving her squinting, it’s Xander.

Willow cringes but his presence makes her decision for her. “I know. I can’t avoid her forever. But today I think I need to stay here and try and keep it together enough that I’m still a person when tomorrow comes.”

Xander smiles and shrugs, closing the door behind him. “I didn’t say anything.”

Willow lets herself relax back down on the couch. “No. But, you are the Council-Certified Willow Expert with a specialization in dead ex-girlfriends. You being here says enough.”

Xander shakes his head and walks over as Willow snorts. “Hey, maybe it’s ex-dead ex-girlfriends, now.”

Falling onto the couch where Willow has lifted her legs to let him sit, Xander rests a hand on hers.

“Willow…”

She sighs. “I already had the supportive, idiot-to-idiot conversation with Faith, okay? I’m… not  _ okay _ , but I’m as okay as these things go, I think. Can you just be my friend who sits next to me because I’ve had a rough day?”

Xander squeezes her hand. “Well, I think I’m technically under you right now,” He gestures to where her legs have come to rest in his lap, “But I think I can manage that.”

Willow lets her eyes fall shut, relieved. “Thank you.”

Xander’s head lulls onto the back of the couch as he relaxes. Willow’s breath falls even and Xander moves his legs carefully under hers, fearful of jostling her from what he thinks is sleep as he attempts to rescue his legs from becoming useless. After what he believes to be a successful adjustment, Willow’s voice rings out in the now near complete darkness of the room, “Can I ask a question that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to?”

Xander smiles. “It’s never stopped you before.”

Willow nods. “If it… if Anya showed up tomorrow, what would you do?”

At his silence, Willow assumes he isn’t going to answer. She gets it, she’s living the real equivalent and she doesn’t know her answer. But then he speaks, “I think… I have no idea.”

Willow hums. He continues, “I mean, I think I would be happy and probably confused about how and why she’s back. Maybe sad that I’d lost so much time with her for stupid things. But I think, mostly, I’d still love her and whatever came with that… I think it would be worth it.”

He looks over at Willow, he sees her wet cheeks under the streetlight shining through the window and asks, “Am I close?”

Willow laughs, wet and sharp. “Yeah. Right on the money. All of those are big things.”

Xander pumps a fist like he’s just won some big award. Still, he asks, “If I’m right, then why do I still feel like you’re keeping something from the Xanman?”

Willow groans. “Don’t call yourself that.”

Xander grins. “I’ll stop calling myself that when you answer the Xanman’s question.”

Willow cringes but it melts to silent turmoil until eventually she says, “Because I’m scared.”

“Scared of me? What did I do?”

Willow shakes her head, “No, dummy. I’m scared that… whoever I am now isn’t someone Tara can love.”

Xander snorts. Willow glares at him, the one he’s seen since age four that means if she were a more violent person, she would probably be kicking him right now. “It’s not funny, Xander.”

Xander shrugs. “It’s kind of funny.”

He catches the pillow she throws at him. “I mean, no offense, Will. But the you that was in a relationship with Tara, she was you so obviously I love her - you? - and you’re my best friend… the point? Where was it?”

Willow stares at him. “Oh! 21-year-old you is hardly as lovable as you get, is the point - no offense. If she could love you then, she definitely can now. So, that fear isn’t one that I think holds enough grounds to keep you stuck on this couch for eternity.”

Willow smiles. “Thanks. Maybe just the night, though.”

Xander concedes. “Maybe just the night.”

Tara finds herself in the quaint bedroom that Giles left to her after a very brief tour due to his apologetic disappearance prompted by a young girl - a slayer, Giles’d said - running down the hall in a panic about some training exercise that’d gone extremely wrong. He left a spare phone he had with a quip about how occasionally Willow’s neuroticism about technology turned out useful and a few numbers - his own, Xander’s, and, strangely, Kennedy’s.

She assumes the room is usually one used for slayers; it reminds her of some of the dorms on the UC campus. The small bed and lack of decor beyond the beige and excessive walls featuring easily pin-able surfaces paint a reminiscent picture. In her curiosity, she opens the drawer of the desk in the corner of the room and sees a laminated piece of paper. In too familiar, scanned writing, it reads,  _ Hello new slayer and/or magic user! Sorry about the impersonal nature of the greeting - but as you’re using this one and not the personalized one, I think it’s safe to say you’ve lost the original letter. That’s okay, but your personal letter from me to you privileges have been revoked.  _

The letter continues, Willow’s caring voice evident even in a letter Tara is sure exists in every dorm room in the castle. She reads it through, smiling at the references Willow makes to their dorm,  _ When I was probably a little older than you are, I was very inclined to decorate my room but there were all these rules we had to avoid. Since we have this snazzy thing called magic here, feel free to decorate your room however you want - if money is an issue, we’ll make it less of one. Just let us know. _

Tara remembers the panic the two of them were in when there was an RA check last minute and the scarves and tapestries they’d frantically ripped off the walls before they remembered they had magic. She smiles at the knowledge that any kids who show up at the Council don’t have to worry about money, a scholarship was the only thing that stood between her being happy or staying with her father and brother until probably the day she died. 

She finishes the letter, most of the information irrelevant but she adds the number left at the bottom to her Giles-prescribed list. As she finishes tediously typing it in, she nearly drops the phone at the bang of the door flying open behind her.

When Tara turns around her panicked fear disappears at the sight of Dawn, older even then the graduation picture in Giles’ house, but Dawn all the same. She sees tears that she imagines are reflected in her own eyes as Dawn says, “I didn’t… I believed Giles but I didn’t… Can I hug you?”

All the words she wants to say, the apologies working their way up her throat get stuck and Tara just nods. Dawn sheds her adulthood as she barrels into Tara, hugging her the way a toddler who can barely keep themselves up would. But Tara can’t help but notice the differences, the way Dawn’s head now rests against her temple instead of her shoulder, the way her own arms are lower on her back now. Time has passed, and she knew that. But Dawn’s all grown up. “I’m sorry.”

Dawn pulls back, the look on her face incredulous. “Sorry? Tara, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

Tara smiles softly, eyes welling with tears as she pushes some of the shorter hair near Dawn’s face behind her ears. “I’ve missed so much.”

Dawn shakes her head. “Nothing too important.”

Tara would argue more but she just shakes her head. “You’re so tall.”

Dawn laughs wetly. “Yeah, Willow used to say it was just comparative because Buffy got the short gene but then I kept growing and now that I’m taller than her she can't make fun of Buffy about it.”

Tara laughs and keeps beaming at Dawn. “How are you?”

Dawn raises her eyebrows. “How am I? One of my favourite people is pretty recently alive again so I’d say I’m fairly good.  _ How are you?” _

Tara squeezes Dawn’s hand as they both sit down on the bed. “I’m good.”

Dawn doesn’t take that as an answer. “You’re good? You’re recently back from the dead - whatever that meant for you  _ and _ you had Willow run out on you earlier.”

Tara sighs. “How’d you hear about the second part?”

Dawn shrugs. “Kennedy mentioned it.”

Tara hums. Dawn presses on, “You’re not gonna get out of answering me, Buffy says I’ve only gotten more annoying with age, so…”

Laughing, Tara says, “Not avoiding, just, thinking.”

Dawn nods. “Are we talking Heaven or Hell aligned? I don’t want to assume either, but I don’t want to not talk about it. You might get all internalize-y and sleep with, like, Faith, or something.”

At Tara’s confused look, Dawn apologizes. “Sorry, I was trying to make a joke, but we don’t have any soulless people around anymore - Faith was the closest.”

Tara nods. “It was a Heaven-ish situation but not… not in an ‘I miss it’ way. It was more limbo, I guess. I was safe and happy, and I saw my mom.” She pauses in thought. Dawn squeezes her hand. “I could feel you guys, too. Not as much, but enough to know when you were safe… enough to know when you  _ weren’t _ .”

There’s clarity in Dawn’s eyes. “Anya.”

Tara shifts, her legs folding under her on the bed. “Yeah.”

Dawn looks down, sniffing a little. “But, uh, you are okay? Being back? You don’t feel numb or like a zombie or like there’s an ultimate evil controlling you to get at Willow or something?”

“No.” Tara says surely. She pauses. “Ultimate evil?”

Dawn shrugs, rolling her eyes. “Xander has some theories, don’t take it personally.”

Tara doesn’t really know she’s supposed to take that at all.

Dawn sees the confusion on her face and looks to explain, “A few years back we had this Anya-scare. There was a ghost who on every level, even magical, seemed to be Anya. Me and Buffy and Giles and Xander we all believed it, except Willow. She refused to stop looking into it. She wouldn’t let Xander do anything the ghost asked him to and Xander got  _ super  _ pissed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them as upset with each other as they were for those months, but Willow wouldn’t stop, even when we all started to get concerned that it was just her weird Anya thing where they kind of hated each other. Xander got really mad and said she didn’t need to try and ruin his life to sooth her jealousy.” 

Dawn’s eyes hold on Tara’s for a moment. “It was rough. And then one day the big bad Willow feared coming came, and the ghost was a minion. And it wasn’t Anya.”

Tara still looks quietly confused so Dawn offers, “Xander is trying to repay the favour in his weird way. But we did maybe half the spells Giles did with you on that ghost, you’ve walked into the Council physically so if you were evil, alarm bells would be going off. But he’s protective, he could’ve been the one to bring you back and he still probably wouldn’t trust you. The First kind of screwed all of us over on easily trusting things that look like people we loved, that ghost didn’t help Xander or Willow.”

Tara nods, understanding. Dawn shakes her head. “It doesn’t really matter anyway, Xander will come around, he hated my girlfriend for, like, months. He claimed she seemed like a demon, which he would know because he has that affinity for, y’know, falling for them…”

Dawn stops her rambling as she both realizes what she’s said and sees the look on Tara’s face. Overdramatically, she cries. “ _ No! _ You and Willow can’t  _ both _ have known before I did, that’s not fair!”

Tara laughs wetly. “Sorry, sweetie, it came up a few times. You talked about your friend Janice pretty often. But I’m proud of you.”

Dawn’s chest grows warm at the words and she beams but quickly corrects herself to a dramatized glower. “Yeah, yeah, Willow’s given me the proud of me speech a hundred times. I can’t believe you both knew I was gay and didn’t tell me. I had a  _ huge _ crush on Xander then, how did you know?”

Tara smirks. “That was one of the clues, actually.”

Dawn squints. “Hey!”

They both laugh, and Dawn knows she’ll cry if she thinks about it more so she doesn’t but she’s so glad Tara’s back. Tara smiles at her. “Tell me about her? Your girl, I mean.”

And Dawn does.

Willow knows she is the head magic user, she knows she is supposed to be a professional, but she can barely focus on anything but her breathing as she listens to the noise of everyone she knows discussing the fact that Tara is back.

The question they’re currently discussing is one that sits in the back of her throat until it sinks to her gut, the real her doesn’t want the answer, the rational one knows she needs it. She’d much rather let it rot there than hear an answer that’s damning, indicative of this being temporary or maybe even her own fault. And she gladly would. Let each lull in conversation be an opportunity she doesn’t take, chipping away and leaving the question in shambles each time she would refuse to ask, “Do you know why you’re back?”

But she’s at a Council meeting so when Buffy voices the idea that maybe they shouldn’t ask her about the details, professional her wins the war against scared her. They’re the first words she speaks, nearly an hour into the meeting, “We  _ have _ to ask her.”

Buffy looks at Willow like she’s burned. It’s not often that they disagree in these meetings, there’s a certain irony Willow sees in their disagreement on asking Tara if she was in Heaven, or something along those lines. Buffy retaliates before Willow can explain her stance. “No offense, Will, but your personal connections kind of seem like they’re based in guilt here. Unless you’re keeping a pretty big secret from the rest of us, Tara being back has nothing to do with you - knowing where she was isn’t going to make you feel better.”

Willow’s face hardens. “ _ Of course there’s a personal connection _ , it’s Tara.”

Buffy looks down. Willow continues, “Do you think I don’t see how that might be creating a few biases? This isn’t just about me, Buffy - it isn’t even just about Tara. Resurrection is powerful, and  _ dark _ , magic. Whoever did it, for whatever reason, is quite likely a threat to us. Not finding out what she knows leaves her and this entire Council at risk. If you want to talk about personal connections, I’d be happy to relish in the fact that she’s alive without thinking about the consequences, I’m certainly capable of it.” She offers Buffy a pointed look and watches the firmness fade from her face. “But as long as we don’t know why, there will be the threat of our lack of knowledge weighing over all of us.”

Buffy concedes. “Sorry… No, you’re… you’re right.”

Faith snorts, “Didn’t think you knew those words, B.”

Buffy ignores the laughs that come from most of the people in the room and glares at Faith, “Not the time,  _ F _ .”

Faith holds up her hands as if to say ‘touché’. Buffy turns back to Willow. “You’re right, but we need to be careful. If we push her too hard, I think we might encourage her to try and make us feel better by lying, and that wouldn’t be helpful for anyone.” 

Willow nods her agreement, fading back into her previous state of focusing on the buzzing in her ears over the details of the conversation. She feels eyes on her but doesn’t look up to see whose they are. She  _ does _ look up when the hair on the back of her neck stands up, spotting the source of the familiar magic as she walks past in the hallway. 

When the meeting eventually comes to an end, Faith brushes past Willow, nudging her hard enough she thinks she might bruise. “What?”

Faith nods towards the hallway where Tara walked past a few moments before, “Stop overthinking every possible interaction you could have with her and go talk to your girl.”

Willow furrows her eyebrows, “She’s not my -”

Faith snorts and Willow rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

As Willow walks off, Faith calls after with a smirk, “You’re welcome.”

Willow finds Tara waiting for her in her office, fingers trailing along the spines of the books lining the walls. “I’m sorry for leaving yesterday, that wasn’t fair to you. But for explanation sake - seeing you brought up some less than fun memories, which we should probably also talk about at some point.”

Tara looks up and smiles, attempting at dismissive. “It’s okay.”

Willow sees through her. “It’s okay if it isn’t okay. I don’t need you to make your own feelings digestible. Whatever you have - sad, angry - I can take it. I can’t promise I won’t react or anything, but I can take it.”

Tara tilts her head, her eyebrows furrowed in consideration. “Okay. Uh, it didn’t make me feel g- _ great _ when I smiled at you, you smiled back, and then you sprinted out of the room. It kind of seemed like you didn’t wanna be around me.” She smiles sadly before continuing, “But I also g-get,” She winces, so does Willow. “That seeing your no-longer-dead girlfriend isn’t exactly a situation where you would be thinking clearly.”

Willow smiles at that. “No, definitely not. But I  _ am _ sorry. It wasn’t about not seeing you. It was more about you not seeing me.” 

Willow looks down, playing with her fingers. Tara waits for her to continue. She does, “Tara, there’s…” She stops and Tara feels a want to step forward and comfort her as she watches tears build in her eyes, but as Willow takes a distancing step back, she knows she shouldn’t. Willow swallows harshly. “There are things we need to talk about. About what happened - about what I did when you, uh,  _ when you died. _ ”

Tara shakes her head sympathetically. “We don’t, at least not right now. Not if you don’t want to.” 

Willow laughs, dry and humourlessly. “I really,  _ really _ , wish I could agree with you. But it can’t wait.”

Tara can’t exactly say that is a non-worrisome clarification. She encourages Willow anyway, “Go ahead.”

Willow takes a deep breath and gestures towards the couch along the wall. “We should probably sit down for this.”

And Tara listens to Willow’s words, each sentence a clarification of the blurry photo she already had and though some of the details are frightening, the larger picture remains the same. As she stops speaking, Tara realizes what she already knew. Willow is still the woman she loves, frayed and more balanced aura and all.

In the tension of reality, they both fall silent. Willow tries to remind herself that she doesn’t need to base everything about herself on Tara’s opinion of her. Tara tries not to feel bad that she doesn’t feel worse about finding out what Willow has done, but most of it was clear in her aura or in shifts in her personality or in their shared past. 

The path that Willow apparently took in reaction to her own death isn’t exactly a hard to understand one, not when Tara spent months watching Willow disappear under her necessity for love through magic until it seemed like she wasn’t there at all. Not when she knows what Xander and Anya told her about Willow fighting Glory. Not when she came back, desperate for the familiarity of Willow, issues and all, and ignored the issues that were clearly still there because skipping it was easier.

Willow losing her faith in love and burying herself in magic while seeking out magic isn’t what Tara would call a surprise. But she still doesn’t exactly know how to respond to the explicit admission that Willow has blood on her hands, some of it from torturing and fighting their friends. 

She finds she doesn’t have to when Willow says as much, “You don’t need to respond or anything, you don’t even have to stay here - I’ll, uh, walk you out to the residence wing. Only because the castle can get super confusing since most of the walls and doors and stairs look the same and the slayers tend to enjoy getting a laugh out of confusing visitors… So, this way.”

Tara gets up to follow Willow, an odd comfort in the familiar flow of unnecessary words after so many that meant too much.

Willow points out a few things as they walk on, Xander’s planning room, Dawn’s office, Buffy and Faith’s training room. She supplies that it’s big enough so that the two of them don’t always try to kill each other, it’s only a weekly affair. She is relieved at the soft laugh that Tara lets out.

“The castle’s nice.” Tara offers as they round a monotonous corner.

Willow looks at Tara as they walk, a little surprised at the olive branch of a conversation starter. She latches on, “It is - most of the time. The winters are super cold but, a lot of us are from California so that might be the issue - Faith and Giles are both usually fine.”

Tara smiles. “Why a castle?”

Willow shrugs. “Xander and I came ahead of the rest of the council to look for real estate and the two offers that were affordable and big enough were this and an abandoned private school campus.”

“And you liked the castle better.” Tara supplies.

Willow shakes her head, laughing. “No, I hated the castle. There were a bunch of weird protection and defensive spell traps all over it and the hallways are weird so moving supplies in was a pain in the ass. Plus having to remove those spells only to replace them with different ones was tedious.”

Tara looks concerned. “But?”

Willow nods. “But Xander liked the castle better and the campus had a temporal anomaly.” At Tara’s confusion, Willow clarifies, “Kind of like a miniature Hellmouth, it doesn’t make an area as big as a town attractive for the supernatural. But living on that campus probably would’ve required even more protections and guards.”

Tara smiles softly. “You couldn’t have closed it?”

Willow agrees, “We could’ve. But like a Hellmouth, it doesn’t stop attracting the baddies when it’s closed. In fact, more would probably go looking to reopen it.”

Tara hums. “So, it was mostly Xander liking it that persuaded you, huh?”

Willow laughs. “Yeah.” 

Her eyes light up, as if remembering something, and she grabs Tara’s hand, pulling her towards large wooden doors that end up leading to a huge expanse of greenery. As they enter the garden, Willow drops Tara’s hand as if she’d forgotten. There are a few flowers among the green that have started blooming in the early spring but most of it remains the bright green of early spring. Aside from a dirt and rock path spiralling through the middle, it’s overflowing with life, and even the path is interrupted with vines and roots. 

Willow, who knows what the garden is, thinks it’s kind of ironic. Tara, who only has an inkling, thinks it’s beautiful.

Willow starts, “A few years ago Sunnydale collapsed and your -” She corrects herself. “The bodies of all the people we loved, they weren’t recoverable. Suddenly all the places and things and bodies that were proof that someone lived, once upon a time, were gone and out of reach. So, we made this.”

“It's beautiful, Will.” Tara doesn’t need to point out the oddly grateful and equally uncomfortable feeling that the sight evokes in her chest. Seeing her own death being mourned so physically is a strange experience. 

She follows Willow through the twisting path, chuckling when she spots the tree that matches her name. Despite her blush, Willow clarifies. “Faith and Dawn thought it was funny.”

Tara laughs. “They’re right.” 

Ducking under the branches of the willow tree, Willow inclines her head, encouraging Tara to follow. She does, and she gasps when she sees the addition to the garden. Where the other plants were recovering from the winter and starting to bloom, these ones look preserved as if by an invisible greenhouse.

At Tara’s awe, Willow clarifies. “These are the… these are the ones that matter. So, we decided a preservation spell would be best.”

Tara, slightly overwhelmed, asks. “Are they, uh, graves?”

Willow shakes her head. “Not really. They’re kind of replacements but just - we can come here and it feels almost… like you are - were - there listening.”

It’s a weird mix of second-hand grief and discomfort she’s feeling, but Tara mostly remains curious. Willow spots it on her face. “I recognize this is extremely weird. We should probably leave.”

As she turns away, Tara stops her. “ _ No _ . I’m not the only one who’s died in your life. And it’s not that weird, an actual grave probably would’ve been too much b-but these are just… flowers are for all events, they can count for resurrection too, I think.”

Willow smiles meekly. “If you’re sure...”

Tara nods. “I am. Who’s who?”

Willow smiles. “We obviously couldn’t make a memorial for every single person we’ve known and lost, so it’s mostly just people who have the Sunnydale-aligned issue of being stripped of a final resting place.”

Tara hums, pointing to the most prominent among the flowers, a wooden structure standing upright with different bright sprigs and colourful blooms entangled with the soil among the middle of the structure. “Who is that for?”

Willow smiles softly. “That’s the only one that’s not just one person.”

Tara urges Willow to continue with a nod. “We’ve lost a lot of slayers, and they have graves all over the world but, this is home base or whatever. We didn’t want to have something as scary and as haunting as a graveyard hanging over the new recruits’ heads but if felt, I don’t know, wrong? To have the only proof of them here be in the lessons about their lives.”

Tara smiles. “So, this is all the slayers?”

Willow nods. “We think so, we had a few experts trace the line all the way back to Sineya and come up with the same names and times, so we think so.”

“It’s sweet.”

Willow agrees. “It was Faith’s idea - I think she got it from Robin.”

Tara draws a blank at the unfamiliar name. Willow remembers and clarifies, “Sorry. Robin is a friend and one of The Council’s allies - his mother was a slayer.”

Tara hums as Willow moves towards the group of sunflowers setting the backdrop for the slayer monument. Willow gestures towards it. “Jesse. When we were kids he bought those salted sunflower seeds from the dollar store and he didn’t know they wouldn’t grow if he planted them so he would dig holes everywhere we went and spent the next weeks tracing his path all through Sunnydale, checking if he’d grown.”

Tara laughs. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

Shame darkens Willow’s features. “I can’t remember. Xander reminded me of that story, all I remember is the night after when he was in his treehouse and refused to come out because he was embarrassed. Sunnydale has a weird way of locking memories away.”

Tara looks at her questioningly. Willow explains, “After Sunnydale collapsed and we were all forced to leave we realized the Hellmouth - or maybe it was the First - was making it harder to remember the people we loved the right way. For years me and Xander didn’t talk about Jesse to each other just because we never remembered to when we were together.”

Tara eyes widen. “That seems… bad.”

Willow hums. “Yeah. It was. But time passed. We’re not there. Me and Xander talk about Jesse all the time now.”

Tara smiles. “I’m glad.”

Willow, who can remember her own inability to remember Tara when she was around Dawn in that last year, agrees. “Me too.”

Moving on, Willow looks to the purple flowers near her feet. “These are Ms. Calendar’s violets. I don’t really know all that much about the why, Giles remembers her better now but he’s still, y’know, a guy and British. Getting him to talk about his feelings is up there with other impossible tasks like resurrection.”

She offers a toothy smile and Tara can’t help but match it. The smile gets wiped from Willow’s face when she remembers who the next section is for. Cautiously looking at Tara, Willow asks, “Has anyone talked to you about... um…”

“Anya?” Tara supplies.

Willow offers a solemn nod and Tara smiles sadly. “I know.”

Willow tilts her head, pondering, and then comes to a decision. “I don’t think I’m going to ask how you know that.”

Tara smiles. “That would probably be smart.”

And though she knows she shouldn’t, Willow adds a tick to a box on her list of reasons to feel guilty.

She pushes through it, continuing. “The roses are Anya. I called Xander cheesy for it but…”

Tara finishes for her, “Roses were Anya’s favourite flower. They made her feel normal - loved in the rom-com, humans are stupid but also kind of cool way.”

Willow smiles, warmth spreading in her chest at the reminder of Tara’s compassion. She ignores the guilt that still spreads in her chest when she thinks about the friendship she denied with Anya for so long. “Xander has his reasons for the colours, I think. But I’ve never asked him to explain them. They just kind of feel like her anyway, y’know?”

Tara looks at the bright pinks, reds, and oranges and finds herself in agreement. “Yeah. I think she would love them.”

When they come to the mix of various purples and blues that sit closest to the tree they walked through, Willow’s voice is softer, different than before. Tara recognizes the flower. “Lilacs.”

Willow nods. “We never… romantic gestures with flowers were never our thing, so that was a realm of knowledge I never… I went with meaning instead - Dawn helped.”

The clawing voice that lives inside Willow’s head, often encouraging her to destroy her life and escape the love of the people she cares about by reminding them of her worst deeds makes itself known. There was an extremely specific gesture made with flowers, Willow just wouldn’t call it love. She doesn’t say that, she isn’t cruel or stupid or so self-indulgent in her guilt that she’d hurt Tara by bringing that up. But the chasm of her chest shifts, for the first time filling with guilt instead of grief as she stands in front of these flowers.

Tara’s voice cuts through the noise. “Explain? Flower meanings were the only thing I could never remember. My mom, she was so good at it, but all the flowers sounded the same to me. I could never get it down.”

Willow smiles, tucking away the idea to discuss adding another piece of the garden if Tara decided to stay. “You know they’re lilacs, there're four different types here. The blue ones mean, uh, tranquility and happiness.” 

She looks at Tara. “That’s more for you than for us on this side of death.”

Tara tilts her head and Willow explains more, “It was Dawn’s idea. But they’re like a natural protection spell or something, wherever you were, those flowers were our hope that you were safe and happy.”

Tara, slowly growing choked up, speaks. “I was.”

Willow tries to process that through the instant buzzing in her ears. But she can barely even register Tara in front of her after hearing the damnation of those two words. Tara was happy. Tara was safe. She isn’t those things anymore. Tara stops looking like Tara and looks a lot like a different blonde standing on a stage in The Bronze, crying as Willow’s world comes crashing down around her at her own stupid selfishness. 

Tara seems to catch that something’s wrong and adds, “I think I like it better here though.”

Willow focuses on those words until she resolves herself to spiral later when she doesn’t have to explain what the Hell is wrong with her when she doesn’t really know herself. 

She moves onto the next flower, hoping Tara doesn’t ask her to voice what just happened. Pointing to the darkest purple, she says, “Spirituality. It’s a garden protected by magic so maybe it’s heavy handed but, if I never knew you then… most of what exists here wouldn’t exist at all.”

Tara smiles. “I don’t know, Will. You were pretty powerful even without me.”

Willow laughs lightly. “Weird to flip the script on you this way. Power isn’t magic and it isn’t understanding. It’s just power, I get that now. Knowing you made me understand magic better, or at least want to. And, you’re kind of sort of a part of all the magic users I’ve taught here because you’re a part of me, so spirituality felt well suited. Plus, they’re pretty.”

Tara smiles and it transforms into the crooked one that Willow is especially weak to and she smiles back, oddly sad.

Willow moves on, “The purpley-pink ones are for love and passion. I think that one’s obvious enough.”

With slightly pink cheeks, Tara hums her agreement.

Willow points to the paler purple. “And lilac lilacs.” She snorts softly at the repetition. “A reminder of old love and means first love. All those cheesy things.”

Tara tilts her head. “First love? I mean Xander and Oz were…”

“Pretty irrelevant. Aside from the lesbian thing even, you were the first person I loved like that.” Willow doesn’t add that despite her best efforts and wishes, Tara remained the only person she could love like that.

Tara doesn’t really know how to respond to that. She says as much, “Thank you doesn't really seem like an appropriate response to a memorial for me. But it’s beautiful.”

Willow laughs. Looking over the flowers in front of her she grows morose. Tara might be back, but Anya and Jenny and Jesse and Cordy and Fred are all still dead, and the flowers are kind and soft, but they’re still proof of that incomprehensible fact. 

Tara sees the grief she was only privy to occasionally when she was alive, in the face of computer issues Willow couldn’t resolve or new books or movies she couldn’t recommend to a dead best friend. Buffy’s death was more denial than grief, dealing with the Buffybot and looking after Dawn and Sunnydale demanded it - apparently the First’s silent presence might’ve also been in play. So, the biggest of Willow’s grief that Tara ever witnessed was that brought on by Joyce and quiet moments when the proof of the people she loved being dead was too big to ignore.

But now she sees it cross Willow’s face, insurmountable. In an attempt to help, Tara says, “You know Sunnydale wasn’t the only proof that they were there and that you loved them.”

Willow smiles. “Of course it wasn’t. But love and memories aren’t always as sticking as they should be. They’re impermanent. They don’t… no matter how much you might want to cherish every moment… they fade.”

Tara sighs. “Willow…”

As if not hearing her, Willow says, “I forgot.”

Tara tilts her head. “What?”

“How beautiful you are.” And though her words are sweet, the distress lacing Willow’s features twists Tara’s stomach into knots. Looking to ease her pain, Tara laces their fingers together. 

“Good thing I’m here to remind you, then.” She was aiming for levity, but Tara receives a nearly imperceptible wince from Willow before she smiles at her. 

Despite her fears, Willow agrees and punctuates her words with a squeeze of Tara’s hand. “Good thing.”

Willow wants to stay here, where there are a few unfamiliar lapses in conversation to parse but where she’s safe. But there are more important things to be then safe. Going to speak, she’s cut off as Tara’s hand in hers pulls her into a kiss. 

It’s familiar, and Willow smiles into it as Tara’s free hand wraps around her neck. Curling her own into Tara’s hair, Willow lets herself melt into the kiss. Letting herself forget, just for a moment, that it’s been over five years since the last time they did this. Letting herself forget what happened not five minutes after the last time they did this. 

It’s all the wonderful things she remembers with the added plus of relief and no death, but it’s also damningly safe. And that safety brings her back to reality. If she has to ignore the near paralyzing fear that builds in her stomach, if she blames the rapid heartbeat just on Tara’s lips on hers, if she ignores the way she has to fight not to put up an unnecessary protection spell, well, then that’s what she’ll do.

Tara can feel Willow’s smile against her lips but when she feels the deep breath against them when Willow pulls back, she knows the smile was bittersweet. Staring into eyes she once thought she would never see again, Willow says, “I love you;  _ I do _ . But… there were a lot of issues we never got the chance to deal with and there’s fun new ones that I have, and I don’t think…”

A laugh of disbelief escapes Willow’s lips, appalled at the words coming out. Quite literally, she’s standing in front of her dream come true and saying no. “I don’t think this will go anywhere good if we just… if we just skip it again.”

And Tara knew. She knew the moment Willow saw her and smiled in a way she’d never seen before. Guarded in a way she’d never seen before. But as much as she knew, as much as she might even  _ agree _ , it aches. Through the tears growing in her eyes, she nods. 

Willow looks down. “I’m not saying no. I’m never gonna say no to a future with you. But I’m saying if it ever comes, it’ll be a waiting game. And I don’t expect you to wait, you don’t need to. But if you do, maybe in the meantime we can work on rebuilding that trust you mentioned before.”

Tara tries not to, but she looks hurt. “You don’t trust me.”

Willow shakes her head, an odd smile crossing her features. “I trust you. I don’t trust me. And I don’t trust that if something happens to you or to us that I’ll survive. So, I need to work on that before I put literally the entire world at risk.”

Tara sighs. “Willow…”

Willow nods. “It’s not… It’s not fair, I know that. You deserve more of a say in this. But I can’t give that to you no matter how much I wish I could.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, but Tara tries, “I forgive you.”

Willow furrows her eyebrows. “What?”

Tara’s eyes soften, pleading. “Willow, whatever guilt you have about us… I forgive you; I did a long time ago. And the things you did when you were grieving… I forgive those too.”

But Willow smiles - the one Tara hadn’t really seen all that often before, but she has seen countless times in the past day - and Tara knows that whatever’s happening in Willow’s head is out of her reach. Willow offers what she can. “Thank you… but I knew.”

Tara tilts her head and Willow tries to elaborate. “There’s this thing that Giles says… it’s not important, just… forgiveness is more about compassion than anything else and you - you’re one of the most compassionate people I know. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Tara smiles slightly at the reminder, but it’s laced with the ache of Willow’s finality. “But I’ve never been as good, definitely not for myself. And I think I need to work on that before I put you in a place where you might need to forgive me for more things. Because you would, and I think that safety isn’t the... I think I would hurt you again. I don’t want that for you…”

Before Tara can call out the paternalism, Willow clarifies. “You can make your own choices, I know. But I don’t want that fear of hurting you again lacing every interaction I have with you when I would really just rather be glad that you’re alive, so I don’t want that for me either.”

Tara hums. “I’m not going to say I’m not d-disappointed or that I completely understand but, o-okay.”

Willow nods and smiles, the first one that feels familiar to Tara. “You’ve been back, what, a day? And already I’ve babbled at you at least three times.”

Tara smiles back. “There are worse things to be greeted with.”

Willow hums softly. “I think I am gonna go now. I’m sure Dawn would love to show you around the castle more, she found all these tunnels through it and she has a bunch of fun theories on what they were used for. She’ll probably tell you about them.”

Tara laughs. “Okay.”

And Willow goes, pushing on the heavy wooden doors to enter the familiar hallway. Tara’s voice calls out, “Hey, Will?”

Willow turns back, eyebrows raised. “What?”

Tara nods to some of the flowers that have started to bloom, “I like those - azaleas, I think? My mom used to cover the house in them so whenever I see them or I smell them, I’m there with her. So, I think they’re probably my favourite. No more, uh,  _ gap _ in your knowledge there.”

Willow beams, the promise of getting to know Tara and letting Tara know her again bright in her eyes. “Thank you.”


End file.
